SOLIDNAA research on soliDNA:

On fixed, non-moving space that is flexible in itselfArchitectural Design

Gerrit Rietveld Academie

INTRO:

A research on soliDNA, on fixed space, non-moving space

that is flexible in itself.

A research where debate and guest lecturer from disciplines

that are not directly related to architecture are crucial for

defining the exact question.

Why did we want a research on soliDNA?

To turn matters upside down is often a successful and inspir-To turn matters upside down is often a successful and inspir-To turn matters upside down is often a successful and inspir

ing approach in architecture, a way to get a different line of

thought started. In our department students tend to make

everything flexible.Non flexible is confusing, I suppose. There is never a design

for fixed space – whatever that may be. Since our students have

a strong visual focus it would be good to start from there: to

go from images to theory and maybe back to images again.

In the end nine doll’s houses were made. They have fixed forms

but most of them can be used in a flexible way. Either the volumes are movable, or the visitor is confronted

with a strict route where fear of water has to be overcome to be

able to sleep, or nature dictates the flexibility of the objects.

The spatial solutions are quite divers and force us to observe

in a flexible way to be able to understand the context of the

solutions.

HENRI SNEL, SEPTEMBER 2009R 2009R

THE SOLIDTHEORY

Theory is like food. You need it to grow as an interior archi-tect, even though you’re not always hungry. But when youare hungry, it can taste good even if you don’t know in ad-vance what your body and brain will do with it. Ed van Hinte and I were the cooks that prepared a menu in advance and then improvised as the season went along, dealing with influences that we did not control and welcoming surprises.

Between September and December 2009 we got some very different guests to lecture and we debated with the students of the first and second year in Architectural Design. We went to a 19th century military site near IJburg and talked aboutpossibilities for the reuse of the site for recreational purposes.We debated about what solid could mean, we saw movies,listened to an architect, a philosopher, a theologian, a gardenhistorian, an artist and a researcher of the Mennonites. We worked at auction house Christie’s and went to Ikea conceptcenter.

Many questions were raised on different themes. We had totalk a lot about architectural solidness because solid is suchan obvious term in architecture. Solid is about bunkers, about a material like concrete, about solid as a rock, as a

brick, as a tree, as a pyramid. A submarine is solid, for eve-

rything in a submarine is designed with a clear purpose.

Should designers make submarines, or do people need a

choice? A grid is solid as well: it defines the space, but leaves

space inside the grid open for change.

Architect John Habraken spoke about his theory, where cer-Architect John Habraken spoke about his theory, where cer-Architect John Habraken spoke about his theory, where cer

tain parts of buildings can be more solid because they have

longer life spans than other.

DORINE VANE VANE V HOOGSTRATEN

CONTENTS:

AsoliDNA-IntroThe Solid TheorySolid Doll AdventureThe ProcessWorkshop at Christie’sIntermediate Results

BStudent Works

IMRPRPR INT:

© Gerrit Rietveld Academie, 2011Fred. Roeskestraat 98 1076 ED Amsterdam The NetherlandsT: 020 – 5711600

http://www.gerritrietveldacademie.nl/

Research and Workshops:Ed van Hinte, Dorine van Hoogstraten and the 1st- and 2nd-year Architectural Design students Intitiative and Editing: Henri Snel M.Arch. (Head, Architectural Design, Gerrit Rietveld Academie)

Publisher: Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Architectural DesignDesign: Anja Groten (Student, Sandberg Institute Amsterdam)Printing: SSP, AmsterdamTypeface: Antique Olive, Aurora BT, ITC New Baskerville Paper: Reviva Offset

January 2011, 500 copies

SOLIDDOLLADVENTURE

The best procedure to learn how to design is to intensely

experience the adventure of creation. The more often you

go through the spiral of meeting challenges until you arrive

at a satisfactory result, the better. It teaches architecture stu-

dents to find a balance between the requirements brought in

by context and the criteria they have to decide upon them-

selves. This can be confusing at first, not being familiar with

the feelings that come with the process, particularly when

teachers seem to continuously change demands.

That is what Dorine van Hoogstraten and I did. And the-

re was a good reason for this, which was not to complicate

life for students on purpose, but rather that the whole So-

lid project to us was an extended and complicated design

adventure as well. At the start the only thing we had was a

rather abstract theme that we wanted to explore. And in the

back of my head I knew that in the end some kind of design

assignment had to be come out of it, for the reason menti-

oned before, but in the beginning I had not got the faintest

idea what it was going to be.

The theme arose from my observation that about half of the

graduates of the previous year left important design decis-

ions to users. This is not uncommon, because of an almost

standard traditional democratic mindset among students in

design and architecture, which nowadays is nurtured by the

promises of the open source principle. Generally though,

leaving too much to users or customers is rather unrealistic.

They simply prefer their acquired artifacts, for which they

paid, to be ready and designed for them. A good illustration

is the fact that toy shops used to sell quite a lot more plastic

assembly kits for models than they do now. These days the

airplane model has been put together and done up for the

customer, because he can afford to simply buy the whole

thing. On the other hand the do-it-yourself market is thri-

ving, mainly because in this day and age it saves money. For

architects and designers it is important understand this di-

lemma and its evolution. Therefore the main issue became

the understanding of rules: their origin, which ones you set

as a designer and which ones you leave to users. Because of

the observation that students tend to leave decisions to users

the main question became: how can the designer achieve

maximum control, and be satisfied.

Henri Snel, the head of the department, came up with the

idea for the title: SoliDNA, a contraction of Solid and of

course DNA, the by now somewhat mythical set of genetic properties, that are believed to determine development, and do so to a rather disappointing extent. Their influence is not as far reaching as current science fiction stories lead us to believe. As a metaphor for designed properties it works quite well, but as the process went on it sadly disappeared. Solid on the other hand, quickly became a household noti-on in theme discussions. One of the reasons for this was that it already is a cliché in the architectural discourse. I didn’t know this beforehand, but particularly in the beginning it led to some misunderstandings. Another word that became quite important was dictatorship. A dictator is in control, so dictatorship is a metaphor for the main attribute of the architect in this project. Throughout the project process it remained quite an interesting notion, with some side effects of being taken too literally.

The project started with an exploration of what Solidness implies in design. Dorine describes the various theoretical approaches elsewhere. For me it implied searching for an angle to actually make students embark on a design pro-cess. The first requirement of my concern was definition of scale. This was not all that difficult, since I already had some experience with doll’s houses. Their scale is 1 : 12,5 and it simply stems from “1 inch equals 1 foot”. The main advantage is that it enforces attention for detail, which is im-portant when it concerns setting rules for ‘users’, or ‘inhabi-tants’. Another advantageous condition is that, if necessary, real examples are available and interior decoration stuff is available in toy shops.

The next requirement that needed to be established was context. There had to be some kind of model community that could partly determine the rules by which houses were to be designed. As it happened Erik de Jong unknowingly provided the idea with his guided tour through the Planta-ge neighborhood in Amsterdam, part of which is the Artis Zoo. The history of this area provided a wonderful chain of changes to embark on. In the back of my mind I was imagi-ning large doll’s houses across he street, to replace existing buildings, a rather harmless academic exercise. However, in-stead the group preferred to develop a new neighborhood on the parking lot next to Artis. Consequently the group was split up in nine groups of three students. Small groups tend to be more creative than larger ones. The subdivision was mapped on a 3 x 3 lot distribution on the fictitious buil-

...

ding site. The first explorations were undertaken with the

perspective of a workshop to really design and build doll’s

houses, modeled on the characteristics of the building site

with each group determining its own principles of setting

rules, or being dictators. In this stage the houses were mainly

large maquettes.

Then suddenly there was this major opportunity. Dorine

had been looking for a place outside the academy to do the

workshop, to protect participants against the distractions of

a familiar environment. The final candidate space was provi-

ded by auction house Christie’s. Their possible interest was

that well designed doll’s houses could perhaps be auctioned.

This put an extra layer on the design requirements. Apart

from being a model of a fictitious house, it now had to be

well made to be attractive as an object and it also had to be-

come a real toy. ‘Playability’ became a new requirement and

it also remained the main ‘confusion agent’ of the project.

Some groups were more successful than others in dealing

with the extra layer of toy design. Admittedly it is not an easy

change handle. On the other hand the process that Dorine

and I went through in gradually designing the assignment

made the project unexpectedly realistic. As a designer it may

occur that you work for a doubtful commissioner that keeps

on changing what she or he wants. Good designers have to

be able to keep their act together under such circumstances.

SoliDNA thus turned into a process of nine ways of adapting.

By comparing processes groups can inspire each other.

ED VAN VAN V HINTE

The idea of a house with inhabitants subject to the whims of nature was translated quite well into A DOLL HOUSE FOR OUTSIDE.

Inhabitants of the house are directly turned into children that play with the house. It is a realistic idea for a new toy. According to my

opinion this design was the most convincing.

Originally THE PANORAE PANORAE P MANORAMANORA IC TOWETOWETOW R stood out in the middle of the R stood out in the middle of the Rdoll house neighborhood. Turning a tower into a toy remained a partially resolved challenge. Half of the toy was a rat elevator,

the other half being an advanced electronic periscope to look around from above. Two toys were merged into one. A choice was not made,

probably because the tower had this strong presence that was difficult to change.

THE PROCESSComment

...

A ROOM FOR CONCENTRATED ALMALMA OST MEDITATIVE ART STUDYalready had a certain introvert doll house quality as a model. The only

strict rule that could not be expressed in design was the one that said that all ‘dolls‘ had to leave as soon as one decided to go. The group

came up with interesting ideas of scale warp: real objects becoming toys as scaled down objects for dolls. The design is expected to work

well as a collection of playful objects.

In the beginning the group focused on THE ECOLOGIC CYCLE OF FOOD, particularly bread. From a certain point being locked up

in this cycle turned the concept into an idea for A MA MA A MA M ZE AZE A DOLL’SHOUSE. This is a puzzling paradox, since the one who plays needs to

pretend lack of overview. A Sci-Fi movie about shifting rooms pro-vided an answer, but negotiating changes between the two sides of the

room puzzle remained a rather theoretical part of the principle.

The basic principle of ENFORCING DAILYLYL LY LY IFE THROUGH DESIGN was cooked up very well from the outset. In the process, however, the group was too eager to actually executed the first idea into a definitive object. Because of this it became difficult to explorevarious options and there was no opportunity to elaborate on

the potential of certain details. Using a projector to illustrate them was a very smart idea to hide that.

In the first stage the idea of ecological FOOD SHARING ANDEXCHANGE was made to look very promising. Later on the groupgot caught up in research on FOOD CYCLES, but it succeeded in

retrieving a nice collection of playful objects to confront players with the complexity of life cycles. Some objects, particularly the double

bowl, could work separately, which is also a weakness. It is not really a convincing whole, yet.

Ecology was the major inspiration and a lot of research was done to discover technical ways and GADGADG GETRY FTRY FTRY OR EOR EOR NERGYGYG EFFY EFFY ICIENCY.

The sheer amount of possibilities turned into a drawback for turning an energy efficient model house into a toy. The potential is clear, but as a toy it lacks a certain straightforward simplicity. Too many small

literal translations of principles covered up an overall idea.

Fascination for mutual openness between neighbors led to an intriguing concept for an apartment building in which neighbors

could continuously be aware of each other, almost to the level of VOYEUOYEUOY RISM. This is difficult to translate into a toy. The group succeeded very well, but could have taken the concept one step

further into toy world by a slightly more playful approach to room negotiations.

The group started with a wild and funny idea for A DANGEROUSDOLL ENVIRONMENT and in the end came up with a rather bland concept of A STACKINKINK G SYSTEM FOR ROOMS. The group worked

hard but kept on coming up with new ideas for the first stage without choosing. The potential of the first ideas somehow disappeared. It probably has been a matter of not making a clear distinction

between strength and weaknesses.

WORKSHOPCHRISTIES

INTERMEDIATE

RESULTRESULTRESUL S

2009/2010 PROGRAM

September 7, 2009 Debate > brainstorm September 14, 2009 Excursion to Fort Diemerdam September 21, 2009 Debate September 28, 2009 Lecture John Habraken, architect and theorist > about choice and control in the built environment October 5, 2009 Lecture Ed van Hinte > about lightness October 12, 2009 Film > Cities for the people (2000) by Jan Gehl and L. Mortensen October 26, 2009 Debate > about utopia October 26, 2009 Lecture Peter-Paul Verbeek, philosopher > about the morality of objects November 2, 2009 Lecture Erik de Jong, garden historian > at the Plantage and Artis November 16, 2009 Lecture Hans-Dirk van Hoogstraten, theologian, in the Tomaskerk > about sacred spaces and objects November 23, 2009 Lecture of Cynthia Hathaway, designer and researcher, > about the Mennonites November 30, 2009 Lecture Barbera Visser > about authenticity dilemmas December 7, 2009 Debate January-April 2010 Design of the doll’s house January 11-14, 2010 Workshop @ Christies March 1, 2010 Film Cube (1997) by Vincenzo Natali March 22, 2010 Excursion to Ikea Concept Center, Delft April 26, 2010 Presentation of the doll’s houses

SOLIDNAALL WORKSHOP PARTICIPANTS

Akira Negishi

Anna Navndrup Pederson

Bin Xu

Casper Kienjet

Chris Bakker

Claire van der Boog

David Benz

Elise Oussoren

Geert-Jan Sarlemijn

Gijsbert Worst

Haruka Uemura

Ivo Clason

Jeanne d’Arc Umubano

Jiin Shin

Julia Ficher

Karoenja Woudenberg

Lidiya Koloyarskaya

Li Wang

Marcin Przybyla

Mark Bakema

Mireille Hofwijk

Mirte van Laarhoven

Quinten Corbey

Satoki Kuwano

Stefan Barut

Trimo Kromotaroeno

Vanessa van Tiggelhoven